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Q&A
Experiences with SBS grants for smaller BIDs
2:08:35
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131 sec
Council Member Oswald Feliz asks about experiences with SBS grants, particularly for smaller BIDs. Dirk McCall de Paloma from Sunnyside Shines BID provides a detailed response about their experience with the small BID support grant.
- Describes the grant as transformative, allowing for hiring of key staff and improved marketing
- Highlights improvements in financial procedures and multilingual outreach
- Notes recent changes in the grant process to a reimbursement model, which poses challenges for smaller BIDs
Oswald Feliz
2:08:35
Okay.
2:08:36
And also another question for anyone who has dealt with these grants.
2:08:40
So we have many different SPS grants, including grants for the smaller bids.
2:08:44
Can you talk to us if you've dealt with the program?
2:08:47
Talk to us about your experience and also what have you used the grants for?
Dirk McCall de Paloma
2:08:50
Okay.
2:08:51
Sunnyside Shines has received the small bid support grant for the last three years, and we're applying for it again this year.
2:08:56
It's been transformative.
2:08:58
This has been the best grant that we've had from the city of New York.
2:09:01
It's been really, really helpful.
2:09:02
We were able to hire a part time marketing manager who's made all of our all of our marketing materials and everything really pop.
2:09:11
So instead of hiring individual people, individual graphic designers every single time, I actually have somebody on staff.
2:09:17
So everything ties in from the street banners that we do to the website to the to the the graphics that we do for events.
2:09:24
It's been incredibly helpful.
2:09:26
It allowed us to hire a bookkeeper, which made certain that our financial procedures were really, really helpful.
2:09:31
We were able in one year to do work with a PR firm.
2:09:34
My district is probably about 55% Latino, and my merchants predominantly speak So we work with Univision and Telamundo and try to make certain that we're doing everything completely bilingually.
2:09:45
But it's also Western Queens.
2:09:47
So you have Korean.
2:09:48
You have Bangladeshi.
2:09:49
You have Arabic.
2:09:49
You have Nepalese.
2:09:51
So we work with people trying to get the press release out to all the different ethnic media in different places.
2:09:56
So that grant was very helpful with that.
2:09:58
We were able to purchase a contract with an organization to do a new website.
2:10:03
Our website was in terrible, terrible shape and kept getting hacked.
2:10:06
At this point, we have one of the better looking websites, I think, of all the bids in the city.
2:10:10
And that's because of this grant.
2:10:11
That's because of SBS.
2:10:13
So it's been incredibly transformative.
2:10:15
And the way it was structured initially, you would get the first twenty five percent, and then you would start spending it.
2:10:22
And once you've done 50% of your work, they give you the next 50,000.
2:10:25
They changed the process now.
2:10:27
So now the process is a reimbursement one, which makes it a lot harder because especially if you're a small bid, you have to expend the money and then you have to do all the paperwork to get the money back.
2:10:37
And it's challenging.
2:10:38
It's you have to really be very careful with where you're moving your money around in order to make sure that you can make the expenditure expenditures and then request for reimbursement.